Monthly Archives: October 2012

Happy Halloween! I wish i had something more festive to share today….but hey! at least its orange…

This was a variation on something I saw on pinterest and it said instead of eating a piece of carrot cake for dessert – try this…It definitely wasn’t as good as cake, but it was pretty healthy and kind of reminiscent of carrot cake so at least theres that….

I saw this posted recently to the PPK blog, and thought this might be something good to make for thanksgiving. I made something similar once though and it was just ok. But this weekend when I saw a butternut squash at the store, I thought I’d pick one up and give it a go.

To my suprise, this was really really good. The sauce had alot of rich flavor, and was so creamy without getting dry, like vegan cream sauces tend to do. It doesn’t use a TON of cashes either, and the sauce makes enough to generously cover a whole bag of pasta. We used brown rice miso, instead of yellow, because its what I had on hand and that seemed to be just fine.

This was an awesome fall dish. highly, highly recommend it! Someone in the comments said they served it up with some apple and sage field roast sausage…that sounds like it would pair perfectly!

I saw this on pinterest quite a while ago, and finally remembered to pick up some rosemary at the farmers market last week so I can give it a whirl. It is supposed to be the scent they use at the williams sonoma store. Not sure I know what that smell is like, but this smells pretty good. Its kind of subtle though.

Two big sprigs of rosemary, slices of lemon and 1-2 tspn vanilla. Fill half way with water and simmer on very low. Add more water when necessary.

I said my last big home improvement project this year would be to get a fireplace mantel put in, which also meant I’d probably get it retiled too….I pinned lots and lots of ideas, and had no clue how to picture what would need to go there. I knew it needed something, the tile was just there, and it was all kind of “floating.” So i started to research just getting a fireplace mantel shelf. Yah, that was just as confusing. What kind of wood, what kind of thickness, etc? I would have never gotten there this year. Not to mention most of the shelves i were looking at were around the $300-400 range. Wasn’t jumping at the idea of paying that much for a shelf.

Well my friend Laurie pointed out this shelf seen above at ikea. for $19.99. And it was the exact size I needed it to be. No brainer. THIS would be the shelf. We took a trip to ikea last night, and earlier today Dj hung it, and just like that the room feels more together. I’m excited (and clueless) to decorate it for holidays!

Now to find the most amazing six foot piece of artwork for above it! Suggestions welcome! Considering this, but not sure its the right one. For now, I’m pretty happy wiht the way it turned out, and shocked this came together for $20!

(also, I’m thinking if we ever paint this room a color, I’m thinking of having all that wood trim painted white. I don’t think i like it so much…)

300 posts in!
Tonight’s dinner was pretty quick to make, and pretty tasty too!
Vegan mac and cheese sauce could be hit or miss, but this I was pleased with – it had alot of flavor!
Original recipe found here.

I made my first infinity scarf using some jersey fabric. Sewing with jersey made me want to poke my eyes out…but I will definitely take another stab at this…..this one might be a little wide, making it kind of thick, but i think it will work great for winter months! I plan to gift this one for christmas!

I saw this on pinterest, and since its been so rainy lately, I thought I’d give it a try with milo. We gathered our metal cookie cutters and put them down on a pan. We filled the cutters with the beads, and baked at 400 degrees for 8 minutes. We punched them out of the cookie cutters…and then…..Meh. I dunno. These didn’t turn out as great as I thought. We made a few others, that aren’t shown because its hard to tell what they are. I think that was the problem…The tree, bell and butterfly were our best ones because they were easy to tell what they are. It passed the time and was fun at least! Milo kept asking when we were going to eat them!